Sunday, November 27, 2011

Yes, Polly has been busy. We are offering a Limited Number of these beautiful hooked Christmas Stocking kits. You can find them here, on our website. The stockings are not to be stuffed, but hooked. These stunners have holly, berries, candy canes, and a flag. They measure 31" long and 9" wide. You have a choice of either red or white. If you are industrious, it will be done by the 24th and Santa's visit. As if you didn't have anything else to do.......

Oh, and don't forget to put these down on your "to-do" list....

1. Wednesday's Minick and Simpson interview on the Creative Mojo radio show

Saturday, November 26, 2011

If you haven't heard.....Polly and I will be interviewed this Wednesday, November 30th on Mark Lipinski's Creative Mojo radio show. You can "tune in" online. Mark it on your calendar and go to www.toginet.com. The show is on from 3pm to 5pm eastern standard time. Hey, even if you can't make it Wednesday - go to the website and it will be available for listening after the show is over. Therefore, you can fit it in at any time. No excuses!

If you're not familiar with Mark (if not, you really need to get out more) - you are in for a treat. He's the best buddy you haven't met yet. If you do know Mark, you know why he's one of our favorites.

We are tentatively scheduled from 3:30 to 4:00. We'll be talking about Victory Girls, our collaborative process, and whatever nonsense comes up.

Actually, listen for Polly and Mark. I'm not much of a talker. If asked to tell you my life story I could convey it all in about 3-4 minutes. Thankfully, Mark is a witty, talented interviewer. If he wasn't - all you would hear is about a half hour of this....

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Our family feast is over and good food and conversation was the topic of the day. We hope yours was just as wonderful.

Just a short note today to let you know lots of things are coming up in the next week. There will be a book review giveaway, a Moda Designer Blog Hop with several giveaways, and an upcoming kit that will be featured in the next American Patchwork & Quilting magazine. There is lots to prepare for around here.

If any of you brave the Black Friday chaos - best of luck and shop safely. Me, I'll be here sewing and doing some shopping online.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Thanks everyone for your great suggestions for Thursday meal. I especially take interest in the vegetables and salads, as I love to be able to make these a bit more interesting. The winner of the Prairie Paisley II Fat Eighth bundle had a great example.....

Wendy, who said..... "My family favorite is Pear Salad. My kids and grands love it! It's not Thanksgiving with out it. Blessings to you and your family!"

Wendy, email me here and I'll get the fabric out to you asap.

This is what I've been doing for the last couple of days. I'll be doing it for a few more.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Hey, it's been awhile. Sorry for the non-blogging. If only something interesting would happen and I could tell you about it...........

Basically I'm making to-do lists and shopping lists this weekend for the upcoming Thanksgiving feast. We're staying in Michigan. Polly is heading to Kansas City to see one son and his family. Her other sons??? Well, they will be here , in Baltimore watching their life long friends coach against each other on THE football game on Thanksgiving day.

Yes, Polly and her family have known all the Harbaughs since the boys all played Pop Warner football together. I went every Sunday afternoon to watch too. I also had the job as baby-sitter for the 2 Harbaugh and 3 Minick boys every now and then. I still have the scars to prove it. Oh, the stories I could tell.

They were all good kids, very good kids, but with over-active metabolisms and a bit of a competitive streak. All five of them were within 2 years of each other. Good luck to both John and Jim. We will all go crazy, hoping somehow that both teams can win.

I am in charge of pumpkin pie and possibly something else for the meal. (p.s. I have made this Sweet Potato cake with White Chocolate frosting before and it is a HIT. The poor ratings are from people who had problems with the frosting. Remember to have the melted white chocolate room temperature or cooler before folding in the whipped cream.)

What is your favorite dish to make for Thanksgiving? Just comment here (and give us all ideas!) and one person will win a Fat Eighth Bundle of Prairie Paisley II. Comment before midnight Monday, November 21st.

Friday, November 11, 2011

I've been planning on writing this post for a couple of days, but have held off so I could also write about the Sacagawea 2012 BOM shop links. We have started the shop list on our website. If you know of a quilt shop that will be offering this quilt as a Block Of The Month - let us know and we'll add them to the list.

I, like many other visually stimulated people, am addicted to Pinterest.It's a great website to collect and store all your visual "pinboards". While perusing Pinterest, I have learned that people are photographing their babies in new and wonderful settings.

I've also learned that if you can imagine it ...... you can have a manicure of it.

I've also learned that I am a food snob. SNOB. I will be the first to tell you that my parmesan cheese is imported directly from Parma Italy. We have a world class bakery a mile from my house and we have fresh bread from it on a regular basis. I will also say I try to buy all my fruits and vegetables from local farmers and I try to buy organic when I can - all thanks to some great grocery stores and an excellent Farmer's Market.

So imagine my surprise when our new favorite recipe, thanks to Pinterest, is a humble throwback to the prepared foods of the 1950's. Behold, the biscuits that are taking Pinterest by storm.

These beauties, while not only the best biscuits I have ever eaten, are also the easiest to make. They have 4 ingredients and take about 2 minutes from bowl to oven.

Pinterest Biscuits

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Put a half stick of butter into a 9" x 9" baking pan and let it melt in the pan while the oven is pre-heating. In a mixing bowl add 2 cups of Bisquick baking mix. Cut in with knives or a pastry cutter 1/2 cup of sour cream. Once the sour cream is cut in, add 1/2 cup of 7-Up soda (not diet). Mix and put out onto a floured board (I used more Bisquick) and pat into an approximate 7" square mound. Cut the biscuits into 9 pieces (think 9-patch!) and put them into the buttered pan. Bake at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes until golden. Enjoy.

Monday, November 7, 2011

I designed this pieced and appliquéd quilt that tells Sacagawea's story. It was made from my scrap basket with all the red, white, and blue scraps of Minick and Simpson collections.

How the Kansas City Star Block Of The Month program works, is you can purchase right now - the 12 patterns for this quilt. If you live in the Kansas City area, one pattern per month will be published in the Kansas City Star newspaper starting in January of 2012. Also, right now quilt shops can sign up and do this quilt for their block of the month next year. Several shops purchased patterns at The International Quilt Market in Houston last week so they could start making their shop quilts. If you know of a quilt shop that will participate in the program, email me here and I will post a list of the participating shops.

Also, in the fall of 2012 this quilt, several rugs, and some more stitchery projects will be published as a Kansas City Star book.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Maybe I should have named this blog post "Random Pictures On My iPhone". I'll try to make a bit of sense of them. Remember the Just One Block thing we did earlier this year?? Well, we wanted to get 1800 blocks. Many, many, many more were sent in by you wonderful people. Hundreds of these were made....

In fact, so many were made that we completely exhausted the supply of star bunting fabric and red floral fabric. So, Susan Stiff and Lisa Christensen at Moda came up with this.... .

60 star blocks to make this charming quilt. Moda packaged up 60 blocks, the backing, and binding into a pizza box and handed out these "almost made" kits at quilt market to quilt shops. All they have to do is sew the star blocks together, layer, quilt, and bind. Then the shops get to deliver to any troop of their choice. Win-win situation. Thank you to all who took armfuls of pizza boxes back to their shops.

Let's see, what else is clogging up the iPhone.....

Elvis made an appearance at the Primitive Gatherings booth. He had everyone All Shook Up.

I'll think I will spare you any more fuzzy pictures. Thanks for all the nice things said about the mysterious 2012 Kansas City Star BOM. I will post the full picture on Monday or Tuesday. Let's give Kansas City Star a bit of time to update their website and I will be able to link you to the information. Here's another sneak peek.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

I'll post a few photos..... but there are better ones "out there" in blogland. Others photographers are kicking our behind in that department.

This was the Victory Girls quilt in the Kansas City Star booth. Notice the lovely wool quilt on the bed made by Maggie Bonanomi . She has a new book out too.

Oh, and His Holiness stopped by the Moda Halloween Party. Here he is with Polly

Uh, not really. That imposter is Mark Pytel, the Great Lakes area Moda sales rep.

I bought a new thimble hand made by T. J. Custom fit right on the spot. I'm going to give it a work out asap.

This is Doug Leko of Antler Quilt Designs. He has been a fixture at market for several years. He was a buyer for his family's quilt shop, but now he is an exhibitor with his pattern company. Here he is, an 18 year old businessman alone in his booth. I have a message for Doug's mom.... You will be happy to know Doug is a fine businessman and a gentleman and he had 5000 substitute Moms looking out for him last weekend.

Above is the 2012 Kansas City Star BOM quilt. I know this because I designed and made it. We are pretty excited about it. I'll post a full size picture of this tomorrow with all the info. Thanks!!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

We tried, really we did. The main obstacle was exhaustion. Once the day was over at International Quilt Market and we wandered back to our hotel room. The day was "hashed" over and then we couldn't even think about downloading, blogging and such. I know you must have followed others who were more ambitious. The Fat Quarter Shop tweeted and posted photos instantly on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to see what happened. Here is what we have ..... just a few days late.

This is our booth just a few hours after we landed in Houston. Thanks mainly to Leigh Ann, it went together fast.

The Beach Girl rug in the foreground is a teaser for our next book that will be published in the Spring. More on that later. The quilt in the background is our Go West quilt.

After the booth went up and some Schoolhouses and socializing..... that first night was set aside for Sample Spree. That fabric melee that you all dream about. This was PART of the line outside the ballroom. Needless to say, the human pile up on the right side of the room - was Moda.

A great time was had by all. There will be more pictures and observations once I pet Gibby and unpack a few suitcases.